It had seemed like a good idea after their home had burned down in Armstrong City thanks to the psycho Guardians. The Commonwealth was keen to acquire sections of the smashed alien starship, the navy paid good money for pieces. All you had to do was head out into the new desert that the planet’s revenge had laid across the veldt between the Dessault Mountains and the Oak Sea, swing a metal detector about, and dig where it went ping. A lot of guys were doing it. They claimed to be very rich, not that you’d know it from the way they dressed or the vehicles they rode.
Tom and his brothers had never had any real finds. A few scraps, chunks of twisted metal that truthfully could have been anything. The dealers in Zeefield never offered much. Scavengers said if any true find came along the dealers would bid against each other, bumping the price up. Tom hated the dealers, but the only way to get the true price on the scraps was to drive all the way back to Armstrong City where the navy starship visited every couple of months to see what’d been found. Traveling cost them weeks. They weren’t making enough to do that.
Every time they went out, Tom was convinced that this would be the trip that hit pay dirt. The starship was huge, mostly solid machinery according to the dealers and other scavengers. That meant there should be segments the size of houses buried under the new desert. How difficult could it be?
This had been another washout trip. They had sensors rigged to cables that stretched out for twenty-five meters on either side of their old Mazda jeep. The ends were fixed to small quad bikes that Hagan and Andy rode, keeping the cable taut. That way they could cover big stretches of the new desert driving along together. The guy they’d bought them off swore the system could find metal twenty meters down. The price he charged them for the rig, they should have been able to locate anything a kilometer away.
All they’d got was a battered old pump made of some lightweight metallic composite, which was probably going to fetch a couple of hundred Far Away dollars, and three curving jags of metal that looked suspiciously like wheel arches to Tom. But they had wires and some electronic modules fixed to them. So you never knew … It had taken the better part of five days to excavate them. The trouble with the new desert was that it wasn’t a real desert, especially not now, a year after the planet’s revenge. To start with it had been a naked expanse of sandy soil. But the rains washed over it, and seeds from the buried plants germinated and began to grow. It was a faint green color now, and the soil was claggy, making digging difficult, especially after the rain. Streams and rivers were reappearing along contours. There were some lowlands that were now just bogs, impossible to traverse. Every time they went out, they’d spend hours digging the Mazda out of unexpected patches of mud.
Tom found Highway One just after midday, and turned onto it, heading north. Farther south, where the road ran parallel to the Dessault Mountains, it had completely vanished beneath the soil of the new desert. Here, it extended out in the open, sometimes for kilometers before high dunes covered it again. They slowly diminished the farther north you went, until half a day past Mount StOmer they ended altogether. It was easy to follow the road, though. Every vehicle left tracks along the line of the concrete underneath the dunes. You could even find the road in the dark.
When he was on the crest of one dune, he saw a dark figure by the side of the tracks a few hundred meters ahead. “What the hell is that?”
“What’s what?” Hagen shouted.
“Will you turn your fucking music off,” Tom told him. That was another thing: Hagen played his jazzy rock all day long at full volume.
“It’s a girl,” Andy said. “Yahoooo.”
Tom peered forward. No way you could tell. “Come on, guys, it’s someone with a busted truck, is all.” Not that he could see one. Not anywhere. But how else would anybody get out here?
“I’m telling you, it’s a girl.”
“Hagen, turn you music off right now, or I’m gonna throw that array out of the jeep.”
“Screw you, asshole.”
But he did turn it down. Tom gunned the Mazda down the slope. Not that he believed Andy, but …
“How much do we charge for recovery and taxi service?” Andy said with a laugh.
“Hell, I know what I’m gonna charge her,” Hagen said, and cupped his crotch.
It made Tom realize what they must look like. Filthy overalls and T-shirts, all in raggedy old sunhats, ancient shades. Unshaved for the whole three weeks. And the state of the Mazda was pretty poor. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered as they approached the figure who still hadn’t moved. He slowed the jeep.
“Told you so,” Andy said.
Hagan started an excited heavy breathing laugh as if he were some kind of retard.
“Shut up, Hagen,” Tom shouted. It really was a girl. She had short dark hair under a white peaked cap, and wore a sleeveless orange T-shirt with tight dark pants cut off just above the knees. And she was sitting in a very weird position, with her legs crossed and feet bent back somehow. All he could think of was how supple she must be to do that. A smile was growing on his face. He halted the jeep beside her. “Good afternoon, there.”
“Howdy!” Andy shouted. “Me and my brothers, we’re heading into town.”
Tom jabbed his elbow into Andy’s ribs.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hagan laughed. “We’re gonna have us a party tonight. Do you wanna party?”
To Tom’s complete surprise she stood up and grinned at them.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” said the Cat.
As always, lack of sleep made Ozzie testy. He unzipped his tent, flapped his arms against the chill of the early morning forest air, and wandered over to the fire they’d built last night. The Bose motile was standing beside it, feeding small chips of wood to the embers. Flames were starting to flicker again.
“Morning, Ozzie,” the Bose motile said. “I’ll have this going again in a minute. Do you want your hot chocolate?” It was speaking through a small bioneural array attached to the tip of a sensor stalk, a custom-built system that could easily be swapped for a standard Prime interface module.
“Coffee,” Ozzie grumbled. “It’ll help keep me awake.” He glowered at the tent on the other side of the small clearing that Orion and Mellanie shared.
“I’m lucky, this body doesn’t need sleep like humans. A good rest is all it takes to refresh me.”
Ozzie sat down on an ancient rotting tree trunk and started tying his boot laces up. The horses were snorting behind him, impatient for their feed. “Some humans don’t need any sleep, apparently. I mean, did you hear them last night? Man, they were at it for hours.”
“They are young.”
“Huh. They could at least be young and quiet.”
“Ozzie, you’re turning into quite a grump. Did you never have a honeymoon?”
“Yeah, yeah. Throw some eggs on the pan, will you, I’m going to see to the horses.” He busied himself with the nosebags.
Tochee was next up, unzipping the hemispherical tent that it had designed for itself. “Good morning, friend Ozzie.”
“Morning.” The array on his wrist translated his grunt into an ultraviolet pulse for Tochee. It looked like a bracelet with a black stone set in the top, the whole thing was bioneural and custom made. The experts in the CST electronics division had relished the challenge of coming up with bioluminescent ultraviolet emitters; it’d taken them the best part of six months, but the little unit functioned perfectly along the Silfen paths.
The first cup of coffee mellowed Ozzie’s temper slightly. Then the sound of human sex started to echo around the clearing, rising in pitch and intensity. The tent was shaking.
“Why do they both refer to your deity while mating?” Tochee inquired as it munched on some rehydrated cabbage. “Is it a request for a blessing?”
Ozzie shot the Bose motile a look, but of course it didn’t have body language he could read. “Uncontrollable reflex, man, look it up in your encyclopedia files.”
“Thank you, I will do so.�
��
Ozzie started eating his eggs and rehydrated bread. Trying to concentrate on the food.
Orion and Mellanie appeared a little while later, both smiling broadly. They held hands as they walked over to the fire.
“I boiled some water for you,” the Bose motile said.
“Probably cold by now,” Ozzie muttered.
“Would you like some teacubes?”
“Yes, please,” Mellanie said. They sat on the trunk together. She leaned against him, her hands holding his, and they smiled at each other again. “Do you have to leave?” she asked.
Ozzie chased off his mood; that was really why he was being such a dick this morning. “Yeah, ’fraid so, man. There’s a split in the path just the other side of the clearing.”
“He’s right,” Orion said. “I can feel it.”
Mellanie gave the tall trees a wistful look. “I wish I could.”
“You’ll learn,” he said adoringly.
Ozzie caught all four of the Bose motile’s sensor stalks waving in unison. He put it down to motile laughter.
They all took a long time to pack up that morning, delaying the moment. In the end all the bags were loaded onto the horses, water canteens filled, lunches made ready in the day packs. Ozzie stood facing Tochee and Orion, feeling thoroughly miserable.
“Tochee.”
“Friend Ozzie, I have dreaded this time.”
“Me, too, man. But you’ll find your way home. We did.”
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”
“Ha! Don’t believe everything humans tell you, okay?”
“Okay.” Tochee extended its manipulator flesh and shaped it into a human hand. Ozzie shook it formally. He wasn’t quite prepared for the way Mellanie threw her arms around him. There was still a small nagging issue of trust with that girl that he hadn’t resolved.
“You’re seriously going to do this?” he asked.
Mellanie gave him an innocent shocked look, which dissolved into a beautifully evil smile. “Oh, yes, I’m doing this. My inserts can record all the worlds we visit. Are you afraid I’ll beat your record of new planets to walk across?”
“No. But you’re at the top of the unisphere. That interview could have turned Michelangelo into your coffee boy. You knew that.”
She gave him a curious, distant smirk. “Black, one sugar.”
“Excuse me?”
“I thought you’d get it, you of all people. It’s far better to travel than to arrive, right? Yeah, I made it to the top. Now what? Stay there for five hundred years? On the way up I found out what it takes to get there, and what I’ll have to do to stay there. I thought I could do it, I really did. I thought I could be harder and nastier than all the rest. Actually, I can be, which is the really awful thing. But I found I don’t like the price. It’s not who I am—I don’t think. I need a break, Ozzie. I need to sort myself out.”
“Too much too soon, huh?”
“You changed the world with wormhole technology, but it was Sheldon who built the Commonwealth. Why, Ozzie?”
“More fun this way.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to take a look at the galaxy. When I get back I’ll have the recordings to step straight back into the number one slot again if that’s what I want.”
“I hope you find out what you want to be by then,” he said sincerely.
“Thanks, Ozzie.”
“In the meantime, be nice to Orion. He’s a good kid.”
Mellanie batted her eyes. “Not anymore, he’s not.”
Ozzie grinned as she walked away, trying not to stare at her ass. Her jeans were incredibly tight.
“Guess this is it,” Orion said. There was something caught in his throat, making his voice hoarse.
“Are you going to be all right?” Ozzie asked. “Really, I mean?”
“Sure. You taught me how to take care of myself. Except for those pickup lines. They were really crap, Ozzie.”
Ozzie hugged the boy, suddenly afraid he was going to lose it and start crying, which would be seriously uncool. “They’re out there, dude, you know that.”
“I do. Sometimes I think I can see them. They’re a long way away.”
“Well, you be careful, remember you can keep coming back.”
“I know.”
“And have fun on Tochee’s world. I want a full report someday.”
“You’ll get it.”
“Look after Mellanie. She’s not as tough as she makes out.”
“Ozzie, we’ll be fine.” Orion gave him a last hug. “Good-bye, Ozzie.”
“Sure, dude, good-bye.”
Ozzie shouldered his backpack, watching as Orion, Mellanie, and Tochee left the little clearing, leading the three heavily laden horses after them. He had a strong impulse to rush off after them.
“Saying good-bye is always hard.”
“What’s that?” Ozzie looked up at the Bose motile.
“I believe Orion is perfectly capable of surviving out here. He is, after all, a friend of the Silfen.”
“Yeah, but come on, he and Mellanie don’t have a brain cell to rub together.”
“It’s not their brain cells that they’re interested in rubbing together.”
Ozzie laughed. “No, it isn’t. I guess it’s going to take Tochee longer than it expects to get home.” He sighed. “Come on, let’s get going.”
They set off in the same direction as the others, to begin with. Ozzie could see them through the trees for quite a while. Orion and Mellanie would wave from time to time. He raised a hand in reply. Eventually, the undergrowth was too dense.
“Is this really a path?” the Bose motile asked. They were forcing their way through bushes and tall grasses, with the trees clustering close together. The ground was damp underfoot.
“Yeah,” Ozzie replied, knowing, feeling the ancient way stirring out of its sleep. “It just hasn’t been used for a long time, is all.”
It took them three more days, pushing through the forest as it turned from doughty pines to lush tropical vegetation that was really thick. On the morning of the third day, the trees began to shrink. They looked malformed, suffering from some kind of disease. Leafless stumps began to appear amid the living trunks, becoming prevalent. The undergrowth gave way to ribbons of slime that covered the ground. It wasn’t long before the dying jungle gave way to a field of boulders. Stone began to rise up on either side, forming gully walls. Thunder echoed around them, growing louder. They were walking into darkness now, with occasional flashes of lightning accompanying the thunder.
“I hear it,” the Bose motile said suddenly.
Ozzie nodded. He walked to the end of the gully, and peered down into the valley below. Overhead, a force field held off the thick black clouds. Lightning scraped across the translucent energy field.
The home of MorningLightMountain was laid out before him. The giant building that had consumed the conical mountain in the center of the valley. Vast rectangular congregation lakes, with their writhing bodies emerging onto ramps where they were marshaled into new regiments by motiles. Industrial buildings mushrooming everywhere.
“I can’t see a single living thing apart from it,” Ozzie said. “Nothing.”
“You won’t,” the Bose motile said. “Not here. There are farms elsewhere. Most of the continental land is given over to agriculture. But there is no wildlife.”
“What’s it doing?”
“Brooding. It thinks it is going to die. Not for millions of years, until the sun expands and fills up the inside of the barrier. But that is all it sees now. It doesn’t believe that any of its interstellar settlements will rescue it, should they survive our nova bombs. It knows they will devolve into independence and thus become its enemy just like all the other immotiles used to be.”
“Morbid son of a bitch, isn’t it? Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Of course. It is only fitting. I was the last thing to escape from Dyson Alpha, it is only right that I bring back
a chance, some hope. MorningLightMountain cannot change now. Evolution here has ended. It cannot think differently, not by itself. Somebody must introduce change, for it will never come from within.”
“And you can do that?”
“I can try. I can insinuate questions into its thoughts. Questions it cannot conceive for itself.”
“Isn’t that a bit like making it in our own image?”
“I don’t think you need worry that MorningLightMountain will ever become human in its outlook. For myself, I will consider it simply developing a more rational outlook as a success. It needs to learn tolerance.”
“Good luck. That’s something we don’t do very well ourselves. We nearly killed MorningLightMountain in a knee-jerk reaction.”
“But we didn’t, did we, thanks to you.”
“And a few others.”
“It will take time, centuries I expect, and there’s no guarantee of success.”
“I’ll come back in a few hundred years, check up on your progress.”
“Please do. It will be interesting to see what you have become by then.”
To Sophie Hazel Hamilton
I never knew how much I missed you until you arrived
WORKS BY PETER F. HAMILTON
THE NIGHT’S DAWN TRILOGY
The Reality Dysfunction
The Neutronium Alchemist
The Naked God
Fallen Dragon
THE GREG MANDEL TRILOGY
Mindstar Rising
A Quantum Murder
The Nano Flower
Misspent Youth
A Second Chance at Eden
The Confederation Handbook
Pandora’s Star
Judas Unchained
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 233